Interview with Madeleine Kennedy

12/10/19
Interview with Madeleine Kennedy
The Enchanted Interior
Laing Art Gallery
12 October 2019 - 23 February 2020

Published in the autumn 2019 issue of Art Quarterly

Review of Beyond Ophelia: A Celebration of Lizzie Siddal, Artist and Poet at Wightwick Manor & Gardens

28/06/18

Beyond Ophelia: A Celebration of Lizzie Siddal, Artist and Poet

Wightwick Manor & Gardens, Wolverhampton
1 March – 24 December 2018

She was described by William Rossetti as “a most beautiful creature with an air between dignity and sweetness with something that exceeded modest self-respect and partook of disdainful reserve,” and is best known as John Everett Millais’ Ophelia (1852) – the girl who caught pneumonia by lying in a cold bath for hours while he painted – and her widower Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s posthumous Beata Beatrix (1863). Lizzie Siddal (1829-62), born Siddall, but persuaded by Rossetti to drop an L for reasons of style and association, was well aware of the conundrum of her situation, valued, as a woman, for her appearance and as a muse for the male artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, while striving to be loved for her character and her own naive artistic abilities. Her incomplete poem, The Lust of the Eyes, begins with the following perceptive lines summing up how it must have felt to be “used” in this way, rather than “nurtured” as a whole woman – and the wife she long waited to become: “I care not for my Lady’s soul / Though I worship before her smile; / I care not where be my Lady’s goal / When her beauty shall lose its wile.”

Read the full review here

Review of Rossetti’s Obsession: Images of Jane Morris at Lady Lever Art Gallery

29/08/14

Rossetti’s Obsession: Images of Jane Morris

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight Village, Wirral

20 June – 21 September 2014

“All the world knows the masses of dark hair, the ivory complexion and exquisite features, the beautiful hands and the great grey eyes which were so unique and overwhelming in their beauty.”

On the centenary of her death, this small but enchanting exhibition brings together more than 30 paintings, drawings and photographs of Jane Morris (1839-1914), chief muse for the later works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), and the recognisable embodiment of Pre-Raphaelite beauty. “The Lady Lever Art Gallery has one of the best Pre-Raphaelite collections in the world so we're delighted to tell the story of the relationship between two of the movement's chief protagonists,” says Sandra Penketh, Director of Art Galleries. It was a love story, but, unfulfilled and heartbreaking, since Jane, who became embroiled in the Pre-Raphaelite circle after meeting Rossetti in 1857 at an Oxford street theatre, went on to marry his friend and colleague, William Morris (1834-1896), with whom she had two daughters. After her affair with Rossetti began, however, Morris and Rossetti agreed to share the tenancy of Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire, so that Jane and Rossetti could spend time together without attracting scandal. During the years that followed, Jane sat for many of Rossetti’s greatest works. He was truly obsessed by the unconventional beauty – or handsomeness – of his model, and she, in turn, loved and cared for him after his breakdown in 1872.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/rossettis-obsession-images-jane-morris-review-lady-lever-art-gallery-wirral 

Interview with Alexander James

05/05/14

Alexander James: interview

Alexander James (b1967) is a photographer with a difference. Rather than capturing the moment spontaneously, James creates intricate sculptural compositions submerged in huge tanks of purified water as the object for his camera. The effect of light passing through, heightened against a darkened background, gives the resulting images a painterly appearance, recalling Dutch vanitas still lifes. This blurring of boundaries between photography, painting and sculpture renders James’s works uncategorisable as well as eerily beautiful.

Six months ago, James, who is usually based in London, moved his entire studio to Moscow to prepare for his current exhibition at the Triumph Gallery. Arriving not speaking a word of the language, he made his home and studio in a 250 sq metre space in the Red October, an island in the centre of the city that, under tsars and later Soviet authorities, housed a chocolate factory, but is now a hub for contemporary art. Working with live models suspended in water, the new works he created in situ develop many of his earlier themes, which were greatly inspired by John Millais’ Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece Ophelia (1851) and Paul Delaroche’s La Jeune Martyre (1855).

James found time to speak to Studio International about the process of relocation and creation, just after the opening of his exhibition, Rastvorennaya Pechal (Dissolved Ennui).

To read this interview, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/alexander-james-interview